Amy Tintera

In the final book in the New York Times bestselling Ruined series, the romance of The Selection and the epic stakes of Red Queen come together in a story of revenge, adventure, and unexpected love. Emelina Flores and her sister, Olivia, were determined to bring peace to the people of Ruina. But as the war for liberation raged on, what triumph and freedom meant to Em and Olivia slowly changed. As Olivia’s violence and thirst for vengeance became her only ambition, Em was left to pick up the pieces. But it’s not only Em who is upset by Olivia’s increased violence. Other members of the Ruined army are beginning to see the cracks, and soon a small group of them defects from Olivia’s army and joins Em instead. The two sisters are soon pitted against each other in an epic battle for the kingdom and the future, and only one will win.

Allied

izzy

decimal rating: 3.54 stars

okay, so this trilogy really threw my usual pattern out of the window. usually, i typically like the first and last book the best, and the second book suffers from middle book syndrome, but for the ruined trilogy it was quite the opposite. avenged was my favourite book, and i didn't like ruined and allied as much. that being said, this wasn't a bad book by any means, just not as amazing as the previous. 

allied starts off at the aftermath of what went down in avenged. cas is king. em and aren are sticking with olivia, but more out of fear of what she will do alone than love. olivia is hurt and suspicious that her sister is going to betray her. and iria–why does the ending of avenged still hurt so much?–is awaiting trial for prison in olso. also this book adds two more points of view to the four in the previous book: iria, galo, aren, em, cas, and olivia. this was confusing at times in that there was a bit of jolting "mindhopping", but it wasn't that horrible since it was third-person not first. 

the story picks up as em and aren are trying to rally some of the ruined behind them so they can form an alliance with cas. at the same time, his mind is on iria, whom he'd promised to save as soon as he can. iria awaits trial, and is sentenced to life-prison in olso. cas tries his best at learning to be king. galo quits the guard, and tries to find his place in the world. olivia begins invading towns in lera. 

em comes up with a plan, allied with lera, to send olivia off to an unwinnable battle against cas's cousin jovita, hoping to eliminate both issues at once. however, the plan goes awry when olivia uncovers the deception, causing the casualty of the lera soldiers and ivanna. she also threatens to kill em in the future, as she's too drained out of magic to kill em then and there. em and half of the ruined heads to the lera palace to meet with cas. *cue all the cute em/cas moments* i don't really have too much to say about this first third of the book since it's fine and not much too notably bad nor amazing happens.

as em stays in the palace and reconciles with cas, aren and galo head off to olso to save iria from prison. meanwhile, iria's life in prison is no easy stroll. although she's supposed to just be sitting in solitary, she's released into the general population, where the other prisoners take an immediate grudge to "the most famous traitor" in all of olso. iria is beaten up periodically and loses half her foot, and although she's a major badass, there's not too much she can do in the situation. predictably, aren does end up saving her, and the two reconcile and they end up bonding more and finally, finally getting in a relationship together. ugh, i love them so much and i'm sad the series is over. 

also i really appreciate that one of the core relationships in the series is aren and em's friendship. they're always so supportive of each other and just stay friends instead of creating unnecessary romantic complications. so wholesome!! where can i get a bestie like aren? taking applications now, thanks :) also aren and galo's new friendship is super well written too!! i liked how their friendship and how their journey together to olso to save iria really brought them together. i felt like their development as friends was really organic and well fleshed out. in addition, i really appreciated how both aren and galo developed from kinda flat side characters that served as "the best friend" to em and cas respectively in ruined to fully developed characters of their own merit by the end of allied. 

i feel like amy tintera does a really good job of incorporating romantic subplots as well as friendships. i really loved reading about callum and wren in rebel and reboot, and i would say the romance in the ruined trilogy definitely lived up to it. em and cas are as amazing as always in the series, and i also really liked how the other characters had their own romances going on completely independently. both aren and iria, and galo and mateo's relationships were just as compelling even though they were totally different. also i liked how when iria's ex-girlfriend (by the way, iria is bi) showed up in olso there wasn't a jealous ex moment. instead, bethania and iria remain friends after their breakup and that was a really refreshing take on the new signficant other meets the ex moment.

this entire review is just turning into me ranting about how much i love iria and aren so instead i'm going to try to talk about galo and mateo. they were so cute together and i really liked their relationship and galo on his own. what i didn't like as much was mateo outside of the relationship. 
it feels like mateo doesn't really have a lot going on besides being galo's boyfriend, and there's not very much about him in the book. he's not a main character and by now there are six points of view so there probably just wasn't enough time, but i would love to see more of mateo in a spinoff!! 

one of the things that i did not like about allied was it's pacing. after em reconciles with cas in the capital, the plot begins to get kind of odd in pacing in their part of the story. they have these cute domestic moments inside the lera palace, which was nice but read a little fluffy for the fantasy. the pacing kind of drags a lot in their perspectives as opposed to the daring rescue mission with the other three characters or olivia's struggle with the rest of the ruined. it just reads kind of out of place compared to the rest of the faster paced part of the book. and then when the ending starts to roll around things happen way too fast. 

especially with the conclusion of em and olivia's battle. i think their entire last encounter is just basically half of a chapter and it doesn't really feel like it was resolved very well. i feel like olivia's perspective is kind of not really explored as deeply as well. generally, i think this particular plot thread reached a somewhat disappointing conclusion especially after all the set up potential for olivia to be a really amazing antagonist. it's just kind of meh, especially with em being the biggest focus of the story out of the six main pov characters. 

the two characters that i did think had great endings were cas and iria though. after injuring her foot and having a difficult time fighting again, iria's the one who stabs olivia. i feel like this is a really appropriate moment for her because she's able to play a big role and finally get "her moment" after like three books where she's not given as much spotlight but also it shows her overcoming the defeated and useless feeling she felt for a significant part of allied. and then as for cas, he really becomes a king in this book and grows a lot to be a lot more confident. he also finally confronts his cousin jovita, which was something he had been putting off for since the beginning of avenged.

concluding thoughts on this entire series. i really liked this series as a whole and really recommend it!! although there were a few aspects i didn't like, i still largely enjoyed all of the books and can really see someone else finding a lot of joy in it too. i guess i'm just a little bit too critical when i read sometimes. also i really need an aren and iria spin-off series because they did not get enough page time. or an iria backstory prequel, delving more into the worldbuilding of olso, which is already established as really interesting.

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In the final book in the New York Times bestselling Ruined series, the romance of The Selection and the epic stakes of Red Queen come together in a story of revenge, adventure, and unexpected love.

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